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Monday, May 16, 2011

A golden sombrero is awarded to a player who manages to strike out four times in a single game (real golden sombrero not included). It's quite the feat unless you're Ryan Howard or Mark Reynolds. Unfortunately, no-hitters and Brian Wilson's beard are all the rage nowadays. Not for me, though. I will pour over the box scores to bring you the finest at swinging and missing.

Josh Willingham is a more productive player than he seems. He's a really good OBP guy setting a career high .389 last season and has 20+ home run pop. He's basically a 2.5-3 WAR player based solely on his bat so trading for him made plenty of sense for the offense starved Athletics. Unfortunately, Oakland has a way of just sucking the production out of bats. Willingham has 6 homers but just a .228/.308/.409 line, all well below his career marks. Things didn't get any better Sunday. He struck out so much that even high school you would have been embarrassed for him...

Bottom 1st: Willingham struck out swinging against Mark Buehrle. He worked the count full before going down hacking.

Bottom 3rd: Willingham struck out looking against Buehrle. This one only took three pitches and he only participated in the second one.

Bottom 6th: Willingham struck out looking against Buehrle. Another full count so he at least tried to get his money's worth.

Bottom 7th: Willingham struck out swinging against Buehrle Jesse Crain. He completed the Sombrero with, you guessed it, another full count.

I should probably being keeping track of all the pitchers striking out the same batter three times in a game if I could remember how to use Excel or Access or had a better filing system than a shoe box full of bar napkins.